A survey of over 100,000 Germans revealed that 94% won’t buy a Tesla vehicle. It doesn’t bode well for the automaker, whose sales had already been falling off a cliff in the important European market.
In 2024, Tesla saw a 41% reduction in sales in Germany compared to 2023 despite EV sales surging 27% during the year.
This has already raised red flags about Tesla’s future in Germany, but it is nothing compared to Tesla’s performance so far in 2025.
Tesla’s sales were down 70% in the first two months of 2025, and again, that’s compared to its already poor performance in 2024.
I was just checking used car prices in germany, and Tesla is well within the trend - maybe it just takes a bit longer to show on the statistics. I would be embarrassed to be seen in a Swasticar. Sadly I own a Tesla Powerwall, but it’s easier to keep this secret :D
That happens when a brand is about one person. Musk made Tesla all about himSelf. In a way he was the product - you could buy his cool car. Be a part of the company with that cool weird funny CEO. He posts memes just like you!!! Loom at his funny flamethrower! How random! Hahaha! He would also lie about so many features that nobody could actually believe it was a lie (full self driving next year™, battery range etc). So they still went ahead and bought it - and had a lot of sunken cost associated to his cool image.
But oh no! It turns out the guy is actually an asshole, a racist, likes nazis, is an delusional and unpredictable drug addict, not that smart, born with money from aparthheit-enabled-exploitation - who could’ve known!?!?
now people don’t like him, so they stop buying his product.
Reminds me of subway. They somehow survived that whole PR nightmare, but still… They’re not nearly what they used to be.
I’m in a different European country but there’s been a very noticeable decrease in the number of Teslas I see in traffic on any given day.
A year ago they were everywhere and now I have to really pay attention to even spot one.
Do you toss eggs at them?
toss eggs
Do you want USians watch with envy?
Am USian. Toss the eggs.
🫱🦋 Is this domestic terrorism? /s
No! This is systematic extortion! This is suppression of free speech! This is against the free market!
ilLeGaL BoyCOtT!!!
A survey of over 100,000 Germans revealed that 94% won’t buy a Tesla vehicle.
Ehhh…
So, normally, you want a random sample in polls, which is very unlikely to not be representative of the population as a whole. If they have 100k people, it very probably isn’t a random sample, because you only normally take something like 1k to 2k people for randomly-sampled polls; there’s a rapidly-declining value above that. If the sample set is self-selected rather than randomly-selected, you can get results that are pretty different from the population as a whole.
fires up Google Translate
While I can’t seem to get the survey page to load, the domain it’s on is apparently t-online.de; it sounds like it’s a reader survey, which won’t be random.
So, normally, you want a random sample in polls,
With 100k size, and no evidence this was deliberately tilted, this is definitely huge.
Unfortunately your link doesn’t show the poll that I can see. So I don’t know the specifics.
But if it’s among mobile users, there is no reason they should be particularly biased one way or the other.If this is reasonably accurate, we can expect Tesla market share to decline further. AFAIK it was about 4% in January in Germany.
There are lots of reasons to not buy a Tesla, and now fear of vandalism may keep people away who don’t really care about the politics. Which could explain the high number that state they won’t buy a Tesla. Most of them are probably not even in the market for a car though. So it’s not just a Tesla they won’t buy.Very important point, just one technical remark, because I see this a lot: You don’t necessarily want or need random samples in surveys. What you want is a probability sample, which means that you know the probability with which a person enters the sample. A random sample is a special type of probability sample, where each person has the same probability to enter the sample.
The large sample used for this “survey” in the OP is a convenience sample, which is a non-probability sample, where the persons’ probabilities to enter the sample are simply unknown. And this is often not a useful basis for a survey, because it’s affected by all sorts of response biases that are difficult to adjust for in non-probability samples.
Also 94% of people say they wont buy a product says nothing as a metric, unless before substantially more said so.
Also if hypothetically Tesla sold their cars to 6% of Germanys adult population, that is like 4-5 million cars.
Yeah. The important and encouraging part is that 70% drop of a 41% drop, while other electric cars are gaining.
Done for now, Musk only owns 12.8% of Tesla - it’s only a matter of time until the institutional shareholders kick him to the kerb.
Musk could have 0 shares in Tesla. The whole marketing of his companies revolved around him. Its even worse than Apple and Steve Jobs. People will think Tesla = Musk until Musk is dead.
Unless they do a huge PR stunt, maybe even a rebranding.
Their CEO may be considering TeSSla as a new brand.
If they actually call Elon out for being a nazi and shout from the rooftops about him owning 0 shares then I’ll consider not laughing at swastikars in public
This. It’s the only way I’d even -think- about the company with any degree of respect. Until the billionaire is stripped of his toys they’re part of the problem.
No Tesla is finished at a minimum to a degree where they will end up as a niche car maker at best.
This would have happened even without Musk being unpopular, because the truth is Tesla doesn’t make very good cars, and their development cycle sucks hard. 5 years to develop a new model, where others typically use 3, and China only 1-2 years. The competition is already overtaking Tesla. Musk just made sales drop faster.
Tesla has lost about 50% of their sales globally YoY as of February. That alone is a cause for near certain bankruptcy.
Other car makers like for instance Nissan are claimed to be in trouble for losing just 5% sales!!It doesn’t help that Tesla are also screwing over the people who buy them. I have heard so many horror stories of what happens when something in your Tesla breaks. Most of it sounds like purchasing a Tesla doesn’t mean that Tesla thinks you actually own that car. Lookup “Tesla right to repair” for just a taste of the mess.
The Germans have had their fill of Nazi built vehicles.
Good.
doesnt mean much, i guarantee you this number would have already been at 60+ before elon did any of his dumb stunts, solely because most people simply cant afford a tesla or are interested in other cars.
wont buy and wouldn’t buy carry very different meanings.
it could mean, even the 20% nazis wouldn’t buy one 😂
I love that for him.
The remaining 6 % of Germans are still 5 million. This number does not means what you think it does.
Including babies, teenagers, disabled, elderly unable to drive and people banned from driving. This number does not mean what you think it does.
Excellent
